All in One Bag

Affective Polarisation & Outgroup Homogeneity

Felix Grünewald

June 22, 2023

Introduction

  • When does disliking a political opponent become a problem?
  • Social cohesion - Conflicts not negative, as long as they overlap (Mason, 2016)

→ Peace in danger when opposition perceived as a homogenous group

Affective Polarisation

  • Strongly connected to stereotypes, prejudice (Iyengar et al., 2019)
  • Political parties as identity-forming institutions

→ In- and outgroup dynamics between parties

Outgroup Homogeneity

  • Concept from Psychology (Boldry et al., 2007; Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992)
  • Stereotypical traits, attitudes, beliefs: Outgroup is perceived with less variance
  • Experiments indicate that this is a socially formed effect

➡ Apply to political context

Perception of Political Opponents

  • Outparty perception can be wrong:

“Americans believe that 32% of Democrats identify as LGB, when in reality this share is 6%.” (Ahler & Sood, 2018)

Examples

“Socialism is the mainstream of the Biden campaign.”

Donald Trump


“I beat the socialist, that’s how I got elected.”

Joe Biden 1

Examples

“Socialism is the mainstream of the Biden campaign.”

Donald Trump

“The obvious plan is to build a government with the Left party.” 1

Paul Ziemiak

Multiparty Context

  • Multiparty context: polarization research more difficult
  • No dichotomous distinction between in- and outgroup (Harteveld, 2021)
  • Homogenously perceived party camps could help explaining polarisation dynamics in this context


  • Premise: Political parties in multiparty systems are perceived in two distinct camps.

Hypotheses

  • H1.1: Parties in opposing party camps are perceived as ideologically closer to each other than those in the allied camp.
  • H1.2: Parties in a party camp are perceived as ideologically closer to each other by members of the opposing party camp than by members of their allied camp.


  • H2: Perception of homogeneity in the opposite camp is positively related to negative feelings towards that camp.

Operationalisation

  • The Comparative Study Of Electoral Systems (2020), nine countries 1
  • Party camps: Division by average left-right party perception
  • Homogeneity: Standard deviation of left-right perception
  • Affect: Mean like-dislike rating of camp-parties

Results

Party Camps

Homogeneity

Homogeneity


Voters of: N Incamp Outcamp p
Left Camp 8,864 1.78 (0.84) 1.76 (0.93) 0.2
Right Camp 10,266 1.99 (1.03) 1.61 (0.92) <0.001***
Full Sample 19,130 1.89 (0.95) 1.68 (0.93) <0.001***

Affect

Discussion

  • Outcamp is perceived as more homogenous than the incamp
  • Outgroup perception is less differentiated than ingroup self-perception


  • Outgroup homogeneity is related to negative affect

Conclusion

  • Confirmation/statistical approach to party camps necessary
  • Control variables, observation over time


  • But: initial confirmation of hypotheses

➡ Outgroup homogeneity is a promising approach in explaining polarization - generally and specifically in multiparty systems

Thank you!

felixgruenewald@outlook.de

twitter.com/felixgruenewald

References

Abeles, A. T., Howe, L. C., Krosnick, J. A., & MacInnis, B. (2019). Perception of public opinion on global warming and the role of opinion deviance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 63, 118–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.04.001
Ahler, D. J., & Sood, G. (2018). The Parties in Our Heads: Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences. The Journal of Politics, 80(3), 964–981. https://doi.org/10.1086/697253
Boldry, J. G., Gaertner, L., & Quinn, J. (2007). Measuring the Measures: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Measures of Outgroup Homogeneity. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10(2), 157–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430207075153
Dahlberg, S. (2013). Does context matter The impact of electoral systems, political parties and individual characteristics on voters’ perceptions of party positions. Electoral Studies, 32(4), 670–683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.02.003
Harteveld, E. (2021). Fragmented foes: Affective polarization in the multiparty context of the Netherlands. Electoral Studies, 71, 102332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102332
Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034
Kelly, C. (1989). Political identity and perceived intragroup homogeneity. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28(3), 239–250. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1989.tb00866.x
Krosnick, J. A., & Brannon, L. A. (1993). The Impact of the Gulf War on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Multidimensional Effects of Political Involvement. American Political Science Review, 87(4), 963–975. https://doi.org/10.2307/2938828
Mason, L. (2016). A Cross-Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw001
Ostrom, T. M., & Sedikides, C. (1992). Out-group homogeneity effects in natural and minimal groups. Psychological Bulletin, 112(3), 536–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.3.536
Sherman, A. (2020). Trump’s false claim that Biden is a socialist. In Politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/15/donald-trump/trumps-false-claim-biden-socialist/.
The Comparative Study Of Electoral Systems. (2020). CSES Module 5 Advanced Release 2. CSES - Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. https://doi.org/10.7804/CSES.MODULE5.2020-05-14

Appendix 1: German Case

Figure 1: Party Perceptions by Voter Group in Germany

Appendix 2: Coding Agreement

Country Mean Agreement
Austria 0.93
Denmark 0.89
Germany 0.86
Italy 0.87
Netherlands 0.86
Norway 0.89
Portugal 0.91
Sweden 0.94
United Kingdom 0.85